body. Jesus has died: the honoured | denly summoned into the eternal state, and glorious head of the whole body and there are others who by very has condescended to lie for a season in lingering steps and by a protracted the silent tomb. Part of three days passage cross the dark line. We see did Jesus consent to be a prisoner in an almost infinite variety in the disthe sepulchre. eases which are employed by Divine Providence to bring men to the dust; and this depends very much on the particular conformation of the frame, on the habits of life, and a variety of incidental circumstances. Some you see are called to depart this life by diseases of the lungs, others by affections of the heart, others by disorders of the head, some by fever, others by flux. There are, as the poet tells us, "The million avenues into the eternal world." Amidst all this vast variety of diseases and liabilities, it is most wonderful that our frame exists as we find it, and that we are so long kept from the grasp of death and from the embrace of the tomb.. "There the dear flesh of Jesus lay, And left a long perfume." Thus there is somethingof especial propriety-something, as Dr. Owen expresses it, of high consistency, that where the head has laid, there the members should lay-that the bed of dust which he has pressed with his mortal body, should become the pillow of your repose; and that he should evince his mighty power by raising you in virtue of his resurrection from that tomb in which he could not be holden, to give a specimen of his Almighty power in bursting the barriers of your grave, just as he burst the barriers of his own grave. "Where should the dying members rest, but with their dying head?" There must be a conformity to Christ in his sufferings, and there must be a conformity to Christ in his humiliation; just as there must be a conformity hereafter to Christ in his glorification, when he shall come to be admired in all them that believe. So that you see death is inevitably certain. We all feel, if we consult our understandings, our consciences, and our impressions upon this subject, that we must die. I must die because the sentence has been pronounced upon my guilty head—I must die because it is the common lot of that nature of which I form a part-I must die because it is necessary that my body as at present constituted should undergo a peculiar process in order to qualify it for the service and enjoyment of heaven-I must die that I may be conformed to the example of my divine Master, with whom I hope to be associated in the splendours and in the triumphs of his eternal glory. Secondly, THE SPECIFIC FORM AND MANNER OF OUR DEATH IS WISELY GOD. But while there are these various modes of departing out of life, let it be observed, in the second place, that this is not left to the choice and option of the subjects of this great change, nor is it left to the volition of others, nor is it left to mere chance and accident. God knows and God predetermines, not only the event of your death and the time at which that event shall take place-for there is an appointed time for man upon earth-but he determines the exact form and character of the disease by which you are to be let out of time and into eternity. You are not certainly left to your own option, or it would be very difficult to choose in what mode we should prefer to terminate our existence. It is not left to the decision of your friends, nor is it left to the arrangement of your enemies. My times are in thy hand." "Not a single shaft shall hit, Till the Lord of Life thinks fit." He could signify to you at this moment by what death you are to take your departure from the present scene; but it is wisely concealed from your observation. The day, the hour, the form, and the manner knoweth no Now it is quite obvious, in the first man. "We know not at what hour place, my brethren, that there are a the Son of Man cometh." Then, my great variety of forms and modes in brethren, if amidst these diversified which the life of man is terminated. forms of departure out of the world There are some who quit the world it is not left to your own option, nor by what is called a natural death, and to the volition of others, nor to mere others by what is called a violent chance, the inference is clear and the death. There are some who are sud-conclusion irresistible, that it is pre determined and arranged by an infinitely wise and holy God. Man may talk to me of certain constitutional predisposing causes-he may talk to me of primary organization-he may talk to me of the habits of life, whether they be sedentary or whether they be active he may talk to me of the accidents of infancy and the calamities of youth, as all having a bearing and relation to the manner of our removal out of the world. I am not disposed to contend with any man about these causes and predisposing circumstances; I allow them all that can be contended for as to their existence and as to their influence; and yet after all they are only so many of the minuter links in the great chain of cause and effect; and the first link of that chain is fastened to the throne of Deity, who is as well the arbiter of death as he is the Lord of life. Philosophers may talk and reason as they please upon this subject; but they only serve to bewilder us with cause upon cause; and after all they are but second causes: whereas we want the preceding agent; we want the primary cause, to whom we may assign the pre-arrangement of all those concerns in which we are personally and deeply interested; and that first cause is the Supreme and Universal Ruler, who numbers the hairs of our head, and without whom a sparrow does not fall to the ground. Therefore it is not left to mere uncertain fortune, where, when, or how I shall quit this mortal scene; because the specific character and form of death which is to take me out of time into eternity is predetermined and wisely arranged. Consider, Thirdly, How IT IS THAT THE CHRISTIANn does glorify GOD IN HIS DEATH, IN WHATEVER PARTICULAR FORM IT MAY OCCUR. In the first place, He meets the first intimation of approaching dissolution with tranquillity and resignation. Every real Christian will often meditate upon death, and endeavour to bring near in realizing anticipation the solemn hour of his departure. It is one thing when a man is in perfect health, and surrounded by all the avocations of the present life, to contemplate death as a matter of speculation; and another thing for him to find it making its actual approaches. There is an hour coming when he will observe no equivocal indications of the decay of the outward man-when he will become the subject, perhaps, of a train of novel sensations, to which heretofore he has been an entire stranger: and when the enquiring solicitude of his friends, the opinions of his physicians, and a variety of other couducing circumstances, will lead to the conclusion, that the time of his departure is at hand, and that he will be called soon to put off the tabernacle of this body; then does he not glorify God when he is enabled to gather up his spirit to meet the solemn summonswhen he bows to the determination of the Supreme Disposer-when he takes up the language of the poet— "Great God, I own thy sentence just; To dwell with fellow clay." when he can say, I have no will of my own: here I am; let the Lord do with me as seemeth good in his sight. If thou hast no further work for me to perform in this earthly vale, I am willing to obey the summons and to bow to thy decision. Secondly, He glorifies God in his death by the effusions of a contrite spirit, and the avowal of a penitent mind. The best attitude in which a Christian can meet death is the attribute of deep repentance, self-renunciation, and contrition, approaching God in our last hour just as we approached him in our first access to his throne, saying, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." The humiliations and the confessions of evangelical penitence in a dying hour greatly glorify God. I am quite aware, that there are some hard religionists who make a rigid orthodoxy their boast, while it is evident it is their snare who say they have no notion of the exercise of repentance in a dying hour: as a certain teacher-one who professes to be a master in Israel, and despises others-was heard not along ago to say, he had no notion of a child of God coming to his Father with a rope about his neck. If the rope about the neck" is a metaphorical expres sion which signifies self-condemnation and self-renunciation, and that too in a dying hour, then I say, Woe, woe, woe, be to that man who can think of going to God in any other His name is all my trust; Nor let my hope be lost." cleaving to the objects and interests of time: and it pleases God by his Spirit and the sanctification of previous affiction, often in the most decisive manner to wean the heart from all created things; so that whatever object was found to stand between God and the soul, is gradually lessened in its importance and in its influence; and the mind happily estranged from all earthly considerations and attractions, bids adieu to the world, disencumbers itself of all the concerns of this passing life, in order that it may have nothing to do but to repose itself on the bosom of its Saviour and its God. Many delightful instances of this we have witnessed, when all earthly encumbrances have been thrown aside, and when the spirit, addressed to its flight and anxious to be gone, has breathed out the language of the Psalmist, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever." Tell me not of the pleasures, ofthe joys, of the gains, of the losses of this evil world: I go to take possession of an inheritance that is incorruptible, that is undefiled, and fadeth not away. How does it glorify God when there is this spirit of holy superiority to all the ties and all the attractions of this passing scene! And what an opposite spectacle is sometimes presented, when (shall I say?) the toothless, sightless, crazied old man, feeling that the house of his tabernacle is shaking and must soon be dissolved, only fastens a firmer grasp of earth, and discovers a greater unwillingness to part with it, going down to the grave cleaving to the sordid object of his idolatrous attachment, and cleaving to much more perhaps than he had any right to call his own. Ah, my brethren, it is the contrast to this scene which alone can glorify God in the death-bed of the Christian. Then you hear him avow, that, if he had ten thousand immortal spirits, he could safely confide them to the care of the Redeemer, resting on his atoning blood, pleading his spotless righteousness, and looking to his powerful intercession. How does he glorify the divine power for having devised a scheme which is honorable to the Governor of the world, and infinitely safe and encouraging to man as a fallen creature; that he can go into eternity firmly relying on the all-sufficient merit and In the next place, God is glorified in upon the atoning blood of the Saviour. the dying hour of his saints when they God is further glorified in the dying are enabled to exemplify unwearied pahour of his people by their manifest tience and submission amidst the pains detachment and disengagement of heart and the sorrows of declining years. It from the objects and interests of the pre-requires no common grace for a man sent world. In consequence of the earthliness of our nature and the strong hold which corruption has taken on our heart, there is too intense a gradually to part with all those characteristic distinctions, by which he has been marked and singled out among his cotemporaries, while he has been passing through the present world, contented to lose his hearing, his sight, his memory, his activity-to be racked with pain, exhausted by infirmities, to have wearisome nights, toilsome days, and months of languishing-and all this without a murmur, without a complaint, with a fixed resolution to justify God in all, to vindicate his ways and approve his dispensations. This tends greatly to glorify God: therefore, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. giving from the heart those who have injured, ill-treated, and misused him not only practising forgiveness from the heart, but exercising kindly affections to those who may surround him. I have been greatly delighted in watching the death-bed scene, to mark the kind consideration of the sufferer for those who were in attendance upon him. I have been delighted by observing the gratitude he has expressed for little services, which nevertheless are of importance in the agonies of the dying hour. How he has smiled, how the tear of gratitude has started into his eye, when the perspiration has been wiped from his brow, when his pillow has been changed, when refreshment has been administered! How he has breathed all kindness and all affection on those about him! And when he has travelled forth in his pleadings on behalf of the Church of God, his family, his friends-when nothing scarcely could produce any emotion, save the tidings of the spread of the Redeemer's kingdom and the advancement of the Gospel among the chil. dren of men sitting in darkness and the shadow of death-and as he has been on the wing for eternity, the contemplation of that glad scene when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, has lighted up his countenance to an ardour and almost to a bliss of delight; he has exclaimed, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be his glorious name for ever : and let the whole earth be filled with his glory." And then sinking on his pillow, the survivor has added, “Let my last end be like his."-Thus it is the Christian glorifies God by his death. Again, the Christian glorifies God by the devout spirit which he breathes while he lies upon the bed of death, waiting for his great change: for he who has lived much in the air of devotion, while he has been mingling in the various active scenes of life, will carry the same spirit of devotion into the sick chamber and the bed of death. How edifying it is to listen to his prayer, when perhaps he imagines that no eye sees him and no ear hears him, but the eye and the ear of heaven! How edifying to mark his conflict with the remains of unbelief, the world, and sin! How does it tend to glorify God to listen to his praises while he thankfully reviews the circumstances of his life, and on the shores of Jordan raises an Eben-ezer, a monumental pillar to the honour and the glory of God, for his faithful ness and his truth and his mercy! How delighful, when summoning around his bedside those who are most dear to him, he exhorts them to have love and kindness among themselves, to cleave to the adorable Redeemer, to be found conscientious in their attendance on the services of the sanctuary, to hallow and reverence the holy day of rest; and when blessing and being blessed he is thus parted from those In conclusion, permit me to ask who desire to catch his mantle as he you, Are you thus prepared to glorify flies to heaven, and pray that a double God, should it be his pleasure soon to portion of the Spirit may rest on them! visit you and to call you from this Finally, He glorifies God by the transitory scene? In order to answer spirit of sweet and fervent charity which this question let me propound another he is enabled to exemplify in his depart--Are you concerned to glorify God ing hours. Love is Christianity, and Christianity is love: therefore he who would glorify God in his last hours, must see to it that, under the influence of Christian means of divine appointment, he be making advances in the principle and in the exercise of holiness; that when called on to depart out of this world, he may depart, for while you live?-for this is the best pledge and presage that you will glorify him when you come to die. I never like to ask the isolated question, How did such a Christian die, but I wish to know, How did such a Christian live? If he has lived to glorify God, I will answer for it that his dying moments will bring some mea sure of Glory and renown to that Sa- | dissolution-with what calmness and viour whom he has loved in life. Are submission he yielded to the sentence you, my dear hearers, bearing in mind and bowed to the infliction of the stroke. that the supreme and chief end of man You must remember the avowals of is to glorify God and to enjoy him his penitence, while you have some for ever? Are you living a life of times seen the tear of sorrow trickling devotion, a life of dependence, a life down his aged care-worn countenance. of cheerful service; thus judging, "that You must remember the firm and if one died for all then were all dead; cheerful confidence which he reposed and that he died for all, that they who in Jesus the Saviour of sinners, as all live should no more live to themselves, his salvation and all his desire. "Oh but unto him who died for them, and Sir," said he to me in conversation, rose again." If thus it is you avow "I am a great sinner; but it is a from day to day your love to visit the faithful saying and worthy of all accross, in order to renew your motives ceptation, that Jesus Christ came into to constant obedience-and if you the world to save sinners, even the are wholly given to God and aiming chief; and on that faithful saying I at his praise and glory while you live, rest my hopes for eternity." It must he will give you grace when you come have been obviously remarked by you to die; and your last hours shall bring on many occasions, with what resigglory to his name. nation and submission he endured the nights of weariness and days of agony, to which he was exposed during the period of life's decline; and how without a murmuring word he took the bitter cup which he was so long in drinking, saying, "Not my will, but thine be done." You must have seen-Oh, it was a delightful sight-how, as he approached the margin of the river of death, he threw from him all the encumbrances of time, set his house in order, and could say for many months before he left the world, I have done with thee. You can recollect too, the fervent breathings of his devout spirit in prayer and praise, and the effusions of his charitable and affectionate mind, not only to those who were most immediately connected with him, but toward a large circle of relatives and friends, and toward the church and people of God. Thus I trust that in that sick chamber and on that dying bed where our departed friend and brother met his fate, we may say these words are legibly inscribed, "By his death he glorified God." Let us comfort ourselves in the recollection of those particular instances in which the sentiment and principle of the text has been acted upon and illustrated under our immediate observation. There are many with whom we have been associated in Christian fellowship and divine worship, concerning whom we may say, that by their death they glorified God. My recollection is happily stored with such instances of those, who have been taught in the school of Christ how to believe, how to live, how to suffer, and how to die. We are surrounded here by a great cloud of witnesses who have borne a living or a dying testimony to the truth of the Gospel and to the preciousness of the Saviour. I trust I may say with great truth, that those instances of mortality, which have recently occurred in the midst of us, afford additional specimens of the principle we have been contemplating. I can answer for it, from frequent visits and protracted attendance at the bedside of our departed friend, Mr. Alexander Adams, who has recently been called from the midst of us, there was a faithful illustration of this great truth. That his last years were his best years, none who knew him can for a moment deny; and that as he arrived nearer at the end of his days, he grew richer in grace and indicated a visible maturity for the services and rewards of God's everlasting kingdom. His mourning family and his surrounding friends must be perfectly aware how he met the first indications of his approaching Let this be a source of consolation to his surviving widow. May it be her concern to tread in his footsteps as far as he followed Christ-to commit the remnant of her days to that God who hath said, I will never leave, nor ever forsake thee. Fear not, I am with thee; be not dismayed, I am thy God." It must be pleasurable to look back on a friendship of so many years, uninterruptedly maintained and harmoniously enjoyed, and now broken up only for a season to be regained, as |